


After

by glymr



Category: DCU - Comicverse, Teen Titans (Comics)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-08
Updated: 2009-08-08
Packaged: 2017-12-03 18:13:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/701180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glymr/pseuds/glymr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kon comes back.  Tim falls apart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After

"Two YEARS," he shouts, and he won't let his voice break. "Two years, and you're in the future, playing future hero...you couldn't come back a little SOONER?"

"They said...they said it wouldn't be safe to come back any sooner," stammers Kon. "I wanted to, I *really* wanted to, Rob, but-"

And Tim feels his shoulders droop in spite of himself. "You couldn't...send a guy a note?" he says, trying to hold on to the anger and failing. "' _Having a wonderful time in the future, will be back eventually, don't do anything stupid while I'm gone_ '?"

"They wouldn't let me. They said it had to be this way, because it *was* this way, and-"

"Do you have any *idea* what we went through? Wonder Girl joined a cult, you know. A stupid, weird, Kryptonian cult that was trying to resurrect you. And I-" he shakes his head hard, as if to cast out the memories. "What I did was even worse."

He stops there and doesn't speak again until Kon finally says softly, "What did you do?"

"I tried to clone you, Kon. And apparently I succeeded." He laughs, a dry, bitter sound. "Congratulations, Kon, you're off the hook. Our future-selves - you remember them, don't you? They came to us. While you were gone. Trying to save their reality. Their Superman wasn't you. It was another clone, a clone that *I* made, because I was so damn _desperate_..." now his voice does crack a little, but he's past caring. "He didn't even have any of your memories. He wasn't you at all. He was what _I_ created him to be."

He grabs Kon by the shoulders and says, his voice tight, "And the fact that you're here now means that either we won and the future is different now, or that...that..." he stares into Kon's face intensely and swallows. "That sometime in the next ten years or so, you die *again*." His fingers tighten reflexively. "And I am not going to let that happen, because I know, I know, I _know_ that losing you again is the one thing that would fuck me up beyond all recognition, would make me truly fucking insane, and I'm so scared, so scared, that it's going to _happen_ -"

Kon's arms are around him, holding him together, pulling him close. "It's not going to happen," he says with certainty.

Tim shudders, feeling the body he's imagined against his in his dreams and nightmares every night for the past two years. "Don't let me become _him_ ," he says, burying his face in Kon's shoulder. "Don't let me become him."

"You won't. I won't let you," says Kon, his voice sure, his body like a rock in a plunging sea.

"I need you," whispers Tim.

"I know."


End file.
